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For me it was the AzizA......I had flown many kites before that one but it just honestly just started teaching me what it liked to do and reacted to what I liked as well...

Do you have any pictures or videos? Before your post, I had never even heard of the AzizA, and there seems to be hardly a handful of pics of this kite on the internet.

yep:old shot......

Chris Matheson designed it....there are 50 Flames and about 200 of the standard color. Originally they were all Black with a colored tip, but towards the end of the run of them Chris had made some other version as well - i have that one that is a deep blue main skin and a green tip and i also have a red skin with black tip too.designed in the mid 90s it was a product between Ben Purcell and Chris....higher aspect....fast..very durable....this one taught me to axel (and boy did it!) and flic flac...i have gotten barrel rolls (not certain what it is called now but the kite is flat parallel to the ground and then rotates 360 around the spine) out of it but not exactly certain how.....

I fly it on short line...~40-50'...and it is a blast....starts flying around 5 but i have heard rumors that a reframe gets it lower....

For me it was a kite that wasn`t mine and I only had it aloft for about 30 seconds. It was also my introduction to literal 0 wind flying. I "flew" a Skyburner Pro Dancer sul and in this brief "fly" I was totally blown away.Within a couple of months I owned one and still many years later it still has that WOW factor. I`ve also acquired a PD ul and a rare PD vented....all 3 connect with me the same way as they are the only sul/ul/vented kites of the same model that feel the same no matter what wind.... btw I`m a die hard old school flier....The other one(s) were/are a rev 1.5 sul, a BMK/Chicago Fire Killer Bee, and a BMK Mojo ul of the final 20 Ken made.bt

For me the first two that I really connected with right away was my Shawn Tinkham Viper and Viper UL. The Nirvana and Transfer xt.r were the next two and when I got my Talon it was right there as well.

Ken McNeill and Chris Matheson kites generally, They both made kites that just fit the way I fly and how I like a kite to feel. Deep Space too but out of all Tim Benson's kites the Outer Space was my favourite. Why did I sell it

Allen Carter's Midi (I think) was the first one to have The Feel I thought a kite was supposed to have. That one led to my Mamba. The DeepSpace feels like home. I could suddenly do things I hadn't been able to do before.

Within the first five minutes of flying I knew I'd found the kite that would teach me. I kept yelling to my friends that I'd found *my* kite! I have that exact same sensation each time I pick it up after messing with a different kite. A hugh sigh of homecoming.

For me it was the AzizA......I had flown many kites before that one but it just honestly just started teaching me what it liked to do and reacted to what I liked as well...

AzizA is high on my list of must gets. Mostly because I'm such a Matheson fanboy.

The Midi is a kite i connected with big time. Still do.

As a design, rather than an individual kite, I would say the Mamba is one of the most comfortable kites to fly. It was like an old friend in a minute. I say design rather than kite to address ADX's issue with an individual kite being so much different than other samples.

There are certainly some kites on the market which have inconsistent assembly and unspecific changes in design from year to year or batch to batch. This is generally not an issue with the Bensons and Blue Moons, but those are pretty high standards.

More often two of the same kites will fly noticeably different do to adjustments, repairs or wear. While the Mamba is one of the more consistently pleasing kites I have seen some pretty drastic changes to bridle and frame geometry. Most often a kite is adjusted in search of some specific flight characteristic and others have suffered.

That said, there can be mysteries. I have two seemingly identical kites from a high quality builder which have consistently different forward speed and subtle differences in other ways. I've had them down to bare sails on the floor for direct comparison and even swapped framesets. A real mystery. In reality the differences are easily adjusted out, but I still want to know why, dammit!

I got my hands on one of Revs xtra-vents and it was "love at first flight"! No more worrying about how the kite was going to handle high winds, this baby just felt so good!! Gave me confidence to fly in the "Team Boot Camp" last year before WSIKF and learn my first routine!! Ended up getting one of my own, it was that nice!!

Try before you buy ? Hah! If anyone else flew within a couple hours of me, I might have that chance. I have bought a couple of kites that were sent to me on demo, though. Other than that, I take the advice of everyone here as to what the next kite will be, and also judge from the videos that people post. I always have about 10 kites on my list of next to buy...

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